


Revelations

by immertreu



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Gen Work, Mystery, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24540949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immertreu/pseuds/immertreu
Summary: Character study plus missing scene for "The Usual Suspects" (2.07)"Detective Ballard knew his type. Sooner or later, they all slipped up. That's how they'd gotten a hold of Dean Winchester. And now they also had his brother who might – or might not – be just another victim, brainwashed by his older sibling."
Comments: 5
Kudos: 97





	Revelations

A/N: Sort of a character study plus a missing scene for "The Usual Suspects" (2.07) because it's one of my favorite episodes. I also love outsiders' thoughts on the Winchester boys. :-)

* * *

**Revelations**

by immertreu

April 28, 2018

* * *

Detective Diana Ballard of the Baltimore PD didn't know what she had been expecting, but it definitely hadn't been this. When she burst through the door leading into the motel room of a suspected serial killer and his accomplice, she was greeted by the sight of a young man – a kid really – with raised hands and an astonished expression on his face. She had seen pictures of him, of course, but damn, he looked even younger in person despite the fact that the most recent photo they'd been able to dig up had been taken at least two years ago by a college friend.

One of his arms was encased in a cast which was mostly hidden by the sleeve of his jacket. The kid was tall, even taller than their biggest SWAT officers currently holding him in check with their rifles pointed at him. His dark hair was a longish shaggy mess, but his clothes – plain, well-worn, probably one of the few things he really owned – were clean. For an unemployed drifter, he looked actually quite presentable.

The greatest surprise were his eyes, though. There was darkness in them, as she'd imagined from the brother of a serial killer with a past as tragic as his, but there seemed also to be kindness there, an innocence which seemed totally out of place on this criminal's face. Not that they could charge him with anything – yet. The search of his room and his past would surely turn something up, though.

Diana knew his type. Sooner or later, they all slipped up. That's how they'd gotten a hold of Dean Winchester. And now they also had his brother who might – or might not – be just another victim, brainwashed by his older sibling.

Sam Winchester didn't resist when they arrested him. He sank onto his knees when the SWAT officers told him to, slowly put his hands behind his head – slightly hampered by the cast on his right arm – and got up after they'd cuffed him, one shackle rattling around pretty loosely over his broken wrist. He then let himself be led to the police cruiser waiting on the curb and folded his long form into the back seat without making a sound of protest, a puzzled expression on his face as if he couldn't quite believe what was happening. He didn't look scared, though, more resigned that the law had finally caught up with him.

Diana stood by and watched him like a hawk.

Sam was an unknown because he hadn't been caught committing any of the crimes they suspected him of. But he was smart. And fast. His and Dean's escape from St. Louis after his brother had tortured and murdered countless women was proof of that. Add to that his full ride to Stanford, his top grades before that, and his – and Dean's – ability to stay under the radar for most of their lives until Sam's girlfriend died, and you got the picture of a highly intelligent and therefore very dangerous man.

He didn't look like a psychopath, though, or a killer. More like an overgrown kid that had been dealt a shitty hand and had learned to just roll with it. So maybe he was just another casualty of his brother's violent streak after all?

Shaking off the unwanted sympathy for their captive, Diana told her fellow officers to put him in one of the nicer interview rooms at the station and get rid of the cuffs. And then she took the time to read the thin file on Samuel Winchester – brilliant pre-law student, orphan, college drop-out and suspected criminal – one more time before she went to confront him.

Nothing in his file suggested that he was prone to violence or capable of the things he must have been involved in, but Diana knew that, more often than not, it was the quiet ones you really needed to look out for.

She picked up a paper cup filled with hot coffee on her way to the interview room. Sam's reaction to her kindness would go a long way in showing her what kind of person the younger Winchester was.

Unfortunately, he seemed a smart-ass like his brother who was being held in an interrogation room down in the basement where he was currently annoying the hell out of her partner Pete.

Sam greeted her with a sarcastic quip and a challenging smirk from across the room when she put down the steaming cup on the table in the middle of the room. "Okay, so you're the good cop. Where's the bad cop?"

Clearly, he wouldn't be lulled into believing she was on his side. Well then, they were just getting started. So she began to quote his file at him, trying to elicit any kind of honest reaction.

Sam kept his cool though, looking every inch the tall, skeptical teenager he must have been not so long ago – the kid was still so young! – until Diana hit a nerve.

At the mention of Jessica Moore's death, Sam paled. His eyes turned darker, his face tightened. And for the first time Diana actually saw the man she suspected him to be: a danger to himself and others when pushed in the wrong direction.

"I needed some time off. To deal," he spat, his gaze hard and unforgiving. Clearly, the untimely demise of his girlfriend and his resulting departure from Stanford was a forbidden topic. There was honest grief in his voice, too, even one year after the loss.

Despite herself, Diana felt sorry for him, but again, she shook it off. She couldn't afford to be distracted.

He started spouting nonsense about being on a road trip with his brother and visiting the second largest ball of twine of the continental US, but he couldn't quite hide his pain. Without warning, though, the uncooperative smart-ass returned and even the threat of running Sam's fingerprints through AFIS resulted only in making his comments more caustic.

She'd lost him again and she didn't know why. Maybe he was that good an actor after all?

Annoyed with herself, Diana chose a different tack. Surprisingly, Sam started talking after she reminded him of the fact that Dean's life was as good as over. And what a tale he spun! It matched Dean's story to the letter and painted a pretty picture of two innocent boys trying to help an old family friend in her time of need.

Diana didn't believe a word of it. She did however believe that he was genuinely sorry for the loss of life.

Seeing that she wouldn't get anything else from Sam at this point, Diana left the room to confer with Pete and see if he'd gotten anywhere with Dean. But the older Winchester had only repeated his claim that they'd come into town after the murder of Tony Giles, the same way Sam had.

These two were good, no doubt about it.

* * *

Oh, they were even better than that! An hour later, Sam escaped thanks to Dean's diversion and his "confession". The young man just vanished without a trace from under the noses of the whole Baltimore PD!

Diana raged silently for a minute, but a tiny part of her got curious: If the brothers were that good, that attuned to each other, that they could improvise like this on the spot – what were they capable of with a bit of preparation and actual communication between them? It was a scary thought.

Two hours after that she was very glad the Winchesters were so good at what they did because her life was going to depend on it. At least if she believed Dean's words. So she raised her hand and knocked on yet another shabby motel room door.

This time, Sam looked even more shocked when he opened the door and found the police on the other side – again. He was quick, though, because as soon as he realized that she was alone, he knew why she'd come. And then he invited her in, just as Dean had promised.

Diana was armed, but Sam was taller, much heavier and definitely well-versed in various fighting styles. She could see it in the way he moved even in the confinements of the small motel room he'd rented. If he really wanted to harm her, he'd have the upper hand in no time, despite the cast on his arm. But Diana hadn't come here to fight, and Sam's offer that she could always arrest him after she'd survived this – whatever this even was – sounded surprisingly sincere. Not knowing what else to do, Diana followed the kid's lead in finding out who the woman with the slashed throat really was and what she wanted.

And then, suddenly, everything started to make sense. Sam Winchester, the enigma, turned from a dangerous criminal into a caring and capable protector in front of her eyes. He was gentle when he touched her hands to get a closer look at her bruised wrists. He listened intently when she told her tale of events she hardly believed herself, and tried to reassure her as best he could that she wouldn't die tonight.

The self-confidence he had only barely shown and hidden under biting sarcasm and bland stares while at the precinct was on display full-force now. He knew what he needed to do. He had the will, the knowledge and the – criminal – skill to pull it off.

Diana didn't know how he'd managed to hack into the police server and get those files, but it was obvious it wasn't the first time. Too bad he and his brother had ended up on the wrong side of the law. They would have made one hell of a team on the force or maybe even with one of the agencies of the alphabet soup.

The infamous Winchester cockiness made a short appearance when Sam shrugged on his jacket and told her that they needed to find the poor woman's corpse and salt and burn it in order to banish the ghost, a barely hidden smirk and a challenge in his voice.

Diana couldn't help herself, she chuckled quietly when she followed him out the door and to her car parked in the lot across the street.

Sam threw her a questioning glance over his shoulder, but she waved him off. Now was not the time to explain to the escaped felon that she had actually started to like him. Maybe. A little bit.

When they reached her unmarked police car, Sam turned to her and raised an eyebrow when she unlocked the doors. Understanding the unvoiced question in his gaze, she shook her head emphatically. She was no fool. Sam could overpower her easily with his tall build and greater strength alone, but she'd rather have him beside her than in the backseat with the doors locked in case something happened. So she said, "Hop in. Shotgun."

With a relieved smile, Sam opened the passenger side door and slid into the front seat.

He had been hiding it well, but he'd clearly been afraid she would just toss him in the back and take him back to the precinct and a cell with his name on it, despite their current truce.

It would probably have been the right thing to do. But what was yet another infraction after aiding and abetting a fugitive from the law anyway? They'd sort out the rest of this mess later. For now, they had a murder victim to find.

They spent the first minutes of their drive to Ashland Street in silence. Diana kept sneaking glances at her too-tall companion folded into the passenger seat. Sam was focused but tense, presumably worried for his brother and thinking about his own uncertain future. He didn't look at her, but she knew he was aware of every movement she made.

Sam Winchester might look like a kid, but he was definitely much more than that. He was well-trained, observant, and probably armed again. Belatedly, Diana realized that he'd been frisked at the station – which had produced a startling array of various blades hidden on his body, just like his brother – but she hadn't bothered to check him again when she went into his motel room. Seeing that he'd had a laptop and some other equipment with him, it was only reasonable to assume that he'd gotten his hands on some new knives or maybe even a gun by now.

Trying to ignore the queasy feeling in her stomach, Diana broke the stillness. "How come you've never been arrested before?"

"Excuse me?" Sam's voice was indignant, the glare he directed her way filled with an emotion she couldn't quite decipher.

Diana backtracked hastily. "Sorry, that came out wrong."

Sam snorted angrily, a reminder that he was no harmless kid. "I'll say."

After a minute of strained silence, she spoke again. "I meant," she began, and Sam threw her a warning glance. "I meant," she repeated more forcefully, "that you've probably been doing this quite a while. Hunting ghosts and banishing them?"

Sam nodded. "If you want to call it that, yes."

Undeterred, she continued, "Seems to me that you operate outside the law most of the time. Breaking and entering, digging up corpses, lying to everyone about anything, probably since you were a teenager."

Sam didn't react to that. Smart kid. He wasn't about to incriminate himself and his brother further.

But she needed to know. "Dean's criminal record reflects that." Raising a placating hand, she said, "I'm not talking about St. Louis here, just petty stuff: credit card fraud, impersonating a federal officer, tampering with evidence you must have needed for your 'job', stealing food when he was younger. So how is it that you, Sam, are squeaky clean? Apart from your vanishing act back at the station, you've never been caught doing anything wrong. Stanford wouldn't have accepted you otherwise."

Sam didn't reply for a long while and Diana thought he never would because it could be used against him or Dean in court later on. Then he surprised her once again.

"Do you have siblings, Detective?"

Startled, she answered without thought. "Yes, a younger sister."

Sam nodded to himself as if her reply was the answer he'd been looking for. "So is there anything you wouldn't do for her?" he asked quietly, hiding his expression behind a curtain of too-long hair falling into his eyes.

_Oh!_

Silently, she shook her head "No". Damn, now she was even starting to like lying, annoying, protective big brother Dean Winchester, too!

Sam smiled sadly as if he'd heard her inner revelation, but his eyes stayed fixed on the road in front of him.

They didn't speak again until they reached their destination and went to confront a ghost.

**The End**

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Like it? Don't like it? See a typo? Let me know! :-)
> 
> I'm also looking for a beta reader, so if you're interested, drop me a line and we can talk. I'm an avid reader and a slow writer these days, but I think it's high time to dust off some of my unfinished stories and finally get around to posting them. ;-)


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